


the cold/the warmth, the void/the light

by Demi_Fae



Series: Whumptober 2020 [24]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, for a few lines, the author needs some fucking sleep yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27188803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demi_Fae/pseuds/Demi_Fae
Summary: Voices, muffled behind the metal of his prison. Words he couldn’t make out and wasn’t sure he wanted to. The last time he’d heard voiced it hadn’t been pleasant- he’d been locked here, after all. He tried to move, either closer to or further from the voices, he wasn’t sure- but he couldn’t twitch a muscle. Instead he resigned himself to whatever his fate might be.-Day 24: Forced Mutism | Blindfolded |Sensory Deprivation
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Whumptober 2020 [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930612
Comments: 7
Kudos: 72





	the cold/the warmth, the void/the light

**Author's Note:**

> I felt bad for hurting Obi-Wan so much and so I switched back to my favorite whumpee, Anakin

Voices, muffled behind the metal of his prison. Words he couldn’t make out and wasn’t sure he wanted to. The last time he’d heard voiced it hadn’t been pleasant- he’d been locked here, after all. He tried to move, either closer to or further from the voices, he wasn’t sure- but he couldn’t twitch a muscle. Instead he resigned himself to whatever his fate might be. 

Brightness burned through his closed eyes and he would have hissed if he felt he could make any sound. Instead his head creaked as it shifted back against the freezing metal walls of his upright coffin. 

He knew his prison better than himself after so long in here. It had frozen every thought in his head and left him a husk of whoever he had been. He didn’t feel or know anything besides the cold, sunken bone-deep into his flesh. He couldn’t smell anything but metal, sharp and burning his nose. He tasted the same and he longed for something, anything else. He couldn’t hear anything but his own breaths and the beating of his heart in his ears, growing more faint with every passing moment. It drove him insane even as it kept him grounded, the sound of his life. It was useless to even try to gather the strength to open his eyes, he would see nothing but pitch black and he’d spent hours cataloguing the seams of his coffin with his hands. There was no escape from here. 

Even the sensations of touch, of  _ feeling _ left him after a while. He knew that he was still supposed to be cold and yet his teeth stopped chattering, he stopped registering anything but the pressure of his legs, back, and head against the walls. Eventually even that left him and everything was numb and sharp and painful and empty at the same time. 

It left him with nothing but his thoughts, and what terrifying things those were. He couldn’t stop his mind from conjuring different futures for himself. Of being rescued and becoming warm again, of being held as he cried. Of freezing here, alone in a coffin, and no one ever finding him because no one cared enough to look. He wrenched himself away from those thoughts when he could, but they were never far. 

Every once in a while he’d reach deeper inside of himself, swearing that there was something there that would help, but he only found more darkness. It was the inky void he dipped his fingers into, not the heat he so desperately wished for and barely remembered. A few times he’d tried to dive deeper than before into the well and every time, no matter how long he’d hold his breath and  _ look,  _ there was nothing to be found. And every time he resurfaced he was colder than before, until he couldn’t even drag his thoughts back to the well. 

Everything had frozen a short time later. He’d lost track after that, blacking out at random times making it rather difficult to know how much longer he’d have to live. 

He spent longer thinking about death than he would have thought. He didn’t know if it would be warm or cold wherever he would be if there even was anything, but surely it coudn’t be worse than he felt now. It might even be a kindness, an escape from… well, not from pain as he couldn’t feel that anymore. An escape from the knowledge he should be in pain and hurting, then. 

A few times he’d toyed with the idea of doing something to make it come faster- teeth against his skin and a different taste in his mouth. Surely the blood in his veins hadn’t frozen as well. He wanted to feel that hot, sticky feeling and not this cold hell, by cutting or bashing his head agaisnt the side- but no, he was too tired. His anger had kept him warm for a time but even that had left him after a while, leaving him scared, aching, and shaking. 

He hadn’t been shaking for a while. The voices were clearer now, not behind metal anymore, and they sounded panicked. He wondered why, for a moment, before deciding he didn’t care. Just worried that their playtoy was too far gone to have much fun with now, probably. He hoped that thay’d leave him here, in the box he’d come to know so well, instead of dragging him off somewhere else to die. 

It seemed he wasn’t that lucky when a hand grabbed at his arm. It pulled him away from his metal coffin and he could almsot swear he felt and heard something tear. He’d have flinched from the touch if he’d been able. It was the weirdest sensation- his skin was frozen numb and he could only register the pressure on his skin, and yet at the same time, he could swear the heat left a burn. They dragged him back out into the light and he shivered as he felt the barest tickle of heat on his skin. 

It hurt. 

The hands stayed on him and brought him to the ground, laying him down. The voices were repeating something, over and over. It sounded like something he should know. Information, a place or an object, or-

A name. 

Anakin?

Oh. Him. 

Anakin coughed and swore he felt his skin crack from moving after staying still so long. His eyes still burned so he didn’t open them. The hands were back and Anakin didn’t know who they belonged to, why were they here, why were they touching him-

Fingers danced around his eyes and caught on something frozen there. Anakin let out a whimper- the first sound he’d made in possibly days- but still didn’t have the strength to pull back. 

The fingers pulled back immediately, however, and Anakin relaxed again. He wasn’t sure if the feeling of something on his face had felt good or bad, but for someone who never knew either, there wasn’t a difference. With the touch of another person it brought the pain of  _ feeling _ their touch, and to do that he’d have to be  _ warm _ again, and that process would be torture in and of itself. 

Even now Anakin could feel himself start to thaw and with it he started to shiver violently. Scraping up every bit of energy he still had within himself Anakin curled into a ball on his side. His limbs groaned angrily at him but he ignored their ache as his face buried between his knees. 

“Anakin?” His hands pressed against his ears as Anakin heard his name. “Anakin, we need to get you to the med bay, do you understand me?” 

Anakin curled up into a smaller ball as he tried to remember why this voice in particular, out of all of them, sounded so familiar. It couldn’t be- was it?

_ Obi-Wan Kenobi, _ the name came to him like a gift. The voice of his master, the one who’s cared for him after- something. He was too tired to remember that, right now. 

But Obi-Wan had always been there when Anakin had needed him. He’d been the one to carry him to bed when tired, to bandage him up when he got hurt, to study with him in the dark hours of the night when Anakin was stuck even if Obi-Wan was exhausted. He trusted this voice, he knew he did, and he could trust it to care for him again. 

“Dear one?” A hesitant hand touched him again, and Anakin forced himself to stay still and not flinch back from the heat. The longer it stayed on him the less it hurt. “Anakin? Can I pick you up?” 

Anakin shut his eyes tighter as he thought about being moved. But those arms around him- warming him up, hurting at first but then feeling nice- would be heaven. Hc could deal with more pain for the pleasure it would bring. Slowly Anakin nodded, but he couldn’t stop the flinch he made as Obi-Wan did pick him up. 

It hurt, and he almost wanted to let out a scream. But his head was pushed into a warm chest and he could finally hear another heart besides his own. He could hear the other voices talking with Obi-Wan’s and he could feel them start to move, but Anakin focused on the pure heat radiating from Obi-Wan’s core. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough to combat the cold in his bones, but it made him hurt for now. 

Anakin moaned lowly and one of Obi-Wan’s hands came to brush away a lock of hair on his head. They both ignored the way the hair was frozen and hard. 

“You’ll be alright soon Anakin, just focus on staying warm-” Anakin gasped as another layer of heat, this time around his own heart, was added to him. The smallest glimmer appeared in the void in his chest. A star that hadn’t been there before, small and far off in the distance but all the more brilliant for the darkness that had been there before. 

Anakin sobbed and felt more tears leak out of his eyes and cover the frozen tracks left from before. He tried to curl tighter but was unable to and so just did his best to start wiggling his arms and toes, doing his best to bring some warmth back into them. 

They were heavy, and it wasn’t just the metal that was weighing him down. Anakin had stayed awake so long in there by himself. Here, now, safe, all he wanted to do was drop off the face of the earth and let himself rest when he knew Obi-Wan would be there for him when he awoke. 

~~ He hoped. He hoped this wasn’t a trick his mind had played on him, a gift between all the pain- but that would just make it hurt more, knowing this was all his imagination, the desperate longings of a man about to die.  ~~

~~ He hoped this was real.  ~~

“We’re almost there, you’re going to be just fine-” 

Anakin sighed as he felt warmer than he had been in forever. His mouth cracked as he opened it. 

“Just hold on a bit longer-” 

“Thank you,” he barely breathed against a warm chest. He let one more sigh fall from his lips before he fell backwards into sleep. At least it felt real. At least if it was fake, he’d have something happy to hold on to. Real or not, Obi-Wan was here and Anakin smiled. 

“Anakin-”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this all at 2 am so that's why there's a lot of weird thoughts. it was fun to write though  
> also my contacts are sticking to my eyes and it doesnt hurt but goddamn does it feel weird
> 
> You can yell at me on tumblr at [rynae-reblogs](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rynae-reblogs)


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